Reporting Scotland staff struggle with either understanding simple statistics or with honesty in reporting them

(c) Mad in America On BBC Reporting Scotland after 6.30pm, last night, we heard: ‘The number of young people in Scotland on anti-depressants has increased by 10% over the last three years. There were similar increases in England and Northern Ireland.’ The increase in England was 15% or 50% higher than that in Scotland. The choice to report the increases over three years was arbitrary and designed to maximise and dramatize the headline figure. We then heard: ‘The figures show…